The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov (39 page)

“Novotvortseva was her name,” Volodya said. “I've been trying to recall her first name. She was married, I remember, and fancied herself a poet. She's not aged well, and she should bathe more often. She took umbrage with that story I read—seemed to think it was addressed exclusively to her. As if I'd known she'd be there. And in the meantime, she'd had absolutely no idea that Sirin and I were one and the same. Comic, isn't it. Now what was her first name?”

I told him I was afraid I could be of no help there.

“It doesn't matter,” he went on. “I must get her out of my head. On the whole, I seem to have found my footing here in Paris quite nicely. They apparently find me English—that is to say, high-quality. Already some of my better bons mots are coming back to me. And increasingly I hear a word beginning with the letters
g-e-n
… I've written to Véra telling her we really must move here as soon as possible. We're practically the last Russians left in Berlin. How marvelous it was to look out at that sea of literate faces! All of literary Berlin could—and on occasion does—fit into a modest sitting room. I've been making valuable contacts as well. I've met with the translators who are metamorphosing
Luzhin's Defense
and
Camera Obscura
into French. A professor from the University of California has offered to show several of my books to American publishers.”

I had never heard my brother speak at such length—about anything, and certainly not about himself—and I began to wonder whether his literary successes had begun to swell his head, until after some minutes it began to dawn on me that it was instead his nervousness at the prospect of our beginning a real conversation, the sort of conversation I had asked for, that accounted for his uncharacteristic volubility.

Only the arrival of our food stemmed the torrent of his narrative. Though we had not yet finished our first, he wondered if another bottle of champagne might be in order. I assented with some relief. He tucked into his
foie de veau
with methodical zest while I took advantage of his momentary preoccupation to say, “Mother conveys to me in great detail whatever she gleans of your life from the letters you send. I have no idea whether she does the same regarding my news. I've gone through some turbulent times, but things have been sorting themselves out.” He continued to eat without looking up. Feeling a bit queasy, I went on, “I'd like you to know, for instance, that I've converted to Roman Catholicism.” He stopped eating, laid down his fork and knife, tipped his napkin to his lips, and looked at me curiously.

“I did not know that,” he said. Then he picked up his fork and knife and resumed his meal.

“Mother's known of my conversion for quite some time,” I told him. “I broke the news to her when I visited back in twenty-six. I suppose I'm not surprised she neglected to pass it along. It was almost as if she hadn't heard me. Not that I blame her. She had quite a lot on her mind, I'm sure.”

“I'm afraid Mother tells me very little about you in her letters. Don't take it personally. She's very distracted by her financial situation, which as you know is frighteningly grim. I've been doing what I can, but I've no money whatsoever. My books may be acclaimed, but they earn me nothing. Recently I've begun to give the occasional by-invitation-only reading in
an attempt to raise funds to send her, but most in my circle are as penniless as I. How you can afford to bring me to this restaurant, by the way, I have no idea.”

“I'll explain that a little later,” I told him, daunted by how much territory I wished to cover, and aware that his schedule severely limited our time together. “It's another chapter entirely. Have you no response to my conversion?”

He shrugged. “What am I to say? I should think it provides you with much-needed consolation and hope. It can't be easy for someone in your condition. I imagine there's much to be sorry for. If belief in an ancient and long-lasting system of practices eases one's suffering, I am hardly one to criticize it—just as I'm not about to criticize Mother's taking up Christian Science, which I presume offers similar benefits.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised.

“But I've heard nothing of that!” I told him.

“She's dabbled in it for some time now. She and Mademoiselle Hofeld both. It's helped her spirits immensely, though to me it's all hopelessly vague. It reminds me of those depressing séances one attends in hopes of actually learning something tangible about the dead. I've never quite forgiven, by the way, that cruel prank you pulled.”

“It was no prank,” I said. “To this day I still can't explain what happened. But I swear to you, I had no ill intent; what happened was entirely beyond my control. How can I make you believe that?”

He studied me. The waiter poured more champagne. “I don't know that you can. It was a very long time ago. It's hard to know anymore what one knew then. There was a time when I made it a hobby to investigate the other world. How many séances I endured, obscure messages from the Great Beyond spelled out one letter at a time by a lazy teacup on a painted board, spectral knockings in darkened parlors, proper ladies making fools of themselves in sham basso profundo to resurrect the spirit of
Frederick the Great or a slave from the time of Vespasian. I was rummaging through all that dismal magic in the hope that, somehow, Father might have found a way to send me a sign. We made a promise that whoever died first would have a solemn duty, through whatever means possible, to breach that barrier separating this world from the next. But though I upheld my end of the bargain, I was never contacted by anyone remotely resembling Father. Though there was one spirit who professed to know my future in great detail. Claimed I would one day teach schoolchildren in Kaluga. ‘High above Kaluga's waters,' as the spirit poetically put it. But I shall never return to Russia. All through the twenties I never ceased to believe that one day we
would
return. But it's like a love that has gone. I shall never return to Russia. I shall never have the opportunity to speak to Father again. At thirty-three, that is where I find myself.”

Obviously he had dismissed out of hand the notion that I might have been the conduit by which Father reached him.

“Do you still believe?” I asked. “I mean, in a world beyond this one? Any kind of life after death?”

He spoke carefully. “I know more than I can understand. I understand more than I can express.”

Unfortunately, at that moment our waiter returned to clear away our plates and, in the process, the fragile communion between us. When he had gone I said, to salvage the moment, “You'll be interested to hear that I've thought seriously about writing Father's biography. A friend who's a great admirer of Father's has urged me to do it. He thinks I'm uniquely suited for the task.”

Volodya's reaction was immediate.

“And what do you imagine you might produce?” he asked. “Some dry, learned rehearsal in which Father's public ‘accomplishments' float unattached to the ultimately unknowable texture of his private life? An allegory of the liberal spirit undone by its own idealism? A sham
biographie romancée
where
an infinitely graduated life is reduced to an artificially crafted plot, complete with characters and dialogue and dramatic scenes that never happened—and worst of all, sentimental detours into the subject's psyche, his innermost thoughts and emotions. No, I think I'd rather see poor Father's corpse thrown to a pack of feral dogs.”

I had never seen him quite so agitated, though he rapidly enough seemed to recognize that the ferocity of his response was out of all proportion to my innocent proposal. He went on, more mildly, “What I mean to say, Seryosha, is that I don't know if a conventional biography is the best approach to the task. It seems to me there must be a better way, a way more attuned to Father's particular genius—though what that way is, precisely, and if it would be at all available to an amateur such as yourself, or even an artist such as I, I don't yet entirely know. I must give it some thought. But I'd strongly caution you against plunging too hastily into such a challenging project.”

“My great regret,” I said, “is that Father and I were on such uncertain terms at the time of his death. Indeed, I've always regretted your account of his worry about me the night before his murder. But what was I to do? Can any of us, even for the sake of the ones we love, be someone we simply are not? People speak of my ‘attitude,' as if it's something I've willfully adopted. I assure you that's not the case.”

“My views have changed somewhat,” Volodya told me. “I've become aware of the extent to which such an attitude runs in our family, though I still fail to understand how heredity is transmitted by bachelors, unless genes can jump like chess knights.”

“You're thinking of Uncle Ruka, and Uncle Konstantin, and, according to Grandmother Nabokova, at least one other. Speaking of the failure to understand—
I've
never understood why you were so cruel to Uncle Ruka, who clearly loved you dearly.”

“Uncle Ruka was a vain, vile monster, who, were there a hell, would deserve to burn there for eternity.”

“But why?” I asked, aghast.

“Why? Because he habitually took advantage of those who were younger, weaker, more vulnerable than he, whether servants or stable boys or Arabs or anyone else he fancied. His appetite knew no bounds. Were you blind to all that reprehensible behavior? But then he never wished to cuddle you every chance he got; he never forced you to play the stallion game. He never humiliated you with his kisses and caresses in front of everyone. You were fortunate, Seryosha. Very fortunate.”

“What I'd have given for a kiss or a cuddle—anything that might have shown he was halfway conscious of my existence,” I said.

“I'm perfectly aware you admired him—far too much for your own good. And because he never took liberties with you, perhaps I'll allow him one single day every year to walk in the green fields of Paradise. But only one! I must confess, Seryosha: I hated seeing you become one of his kind, though I suspect you're infinitely kinder, more moral than he. But are you any less unhappy? He, too, adopted Roman Catholicism in his endless search for relief from his urges, but I don't think it did him any good. I can only hope you're more fortunate than he.”

The remark gave me pause; I had forgotten entirely my uncle's long-ago conversion. “You were often quite cruel to me,” I found myself saying. “The way you and Yuri teased me, when I was Louise Poindexter and you and he were Apaches and mustangers. Or when you showed my diary to our tutor, knowing that he would most certainly show it to Father. Or when you denied me my grief for Davide Gornotsvetov, practically accusing me of having invented him—and then to read in
Mary
a description of a character named Gornotsvetov who resembles Davide in so many ways. What am I to think of that, Volodya?”

“I never knew this Davide Gornotsvetov. Readers are always
finding uncanny coincidences in my work. Art has a discomfiting way of sending its tentacles out into so-called reality. That's all there is to it.”

“It doesn't matter. It was all a long time ago, as you say, and I don't mean to rehearse old grievances.”

“I really don't remember any of these things you accuse me of, but then I'm all too aware I was a bit of a brute and a bully in those days. For that I'm truly sorry. But you have to understand, dear Seryosha,”—here he smiled—“as the butt of a practical joke now and again, you really were irresistible. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Of course I forgive you. I forgive everybody who, whether inadvertently or not, made my boyhood so miserable. Father, Mother, the teachers at Tenishev and the Gymnasium, my treacherous classmates, that villain Bekhetev.”

“Bekhetev? Our physician?”

“An ass and a charlatan,” I said. “Now there's someone who should be consigned to hellfire.”

“I can't imagine a more decent, benevolent gentleman. I'm terrifically grateful he's in Prague these days, where he can attend Mother even if her Christian Science asks her to eschew proper medicine. Even today, Olga and Elena swear by his care. They won't see anyone else.”

I proceeded to tell him in some detail of my “cure” at Dr. Bekhetev's hands, those weekly sessions of pseudoscientific cruelty that ended only when the civilization that had mandated them ended as well.

“I never knew,” he said when I had finished. He looked vaguely perplexed. “But then, most of your life has necessarily been mysterious to me. Even when we lived under the same roof.”

“Why ‘necessarily?'” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “I don't know, really. I suppose I've never given it any thought.”

“I've never wished to be mysterious, and I certainly don't wish to be mysterious any longer,” I told him. “My only wish at the moment is that you'll consent to know me as you know any other human being. I'm no less real for having been your shadow.”

“You were never my shadow.”

“I'm afraid I was. I know I was born too soon. I know I followed you too quickly into this world. It's neither my fault nor yours. But from the beginning, I think, you resented me.”

He smiled, scratched his head, leaned back in his chair, put one hand inside the English-style waistcoat he had worn ever since his Cambridge days.

“Ah, Seryosha, I'd like to tell you you're quite mad, but since a mood of ‘honesty' seems to be upon us this afternoon, and since my train leaves soon, I'll instead tell you this. You may do with it what you will. As you undoubtedly know, I'm plagued by merciless insomnia. One of my earliest memories is of lying awake at night, listening to your contented breathing on the other side of the bedroom screen, feeling both envy and—shall I confess it?—a certain sense of superiority to the ease with which you could forsake consciousness. Even today, when I do eventually manage to drift off, I'm assailed by nightmares so torturous as to make my slumber seem hardly worth the effort. One nightmare in particular repeats itself. I've never told this to anyone. Probably it doesn't bear telling even now. But it would seem to involve you, or some dream twin of yours.